What a Stinker!!

Hello!

Well, Friday just gone was one out of the box weather-wise. 

Here, in our South East corner of Gippsland (Victoria, Australia), we copped a share of those hot northerlies which blew heat from central Australia.  Our  stinker of a day peaked at 43degC (109.4F).

We were pretty lucky really because those poor folk who live in the centre of Australia (Alice Springs) have endured temperatures exceeding 40degC every day since Christmas Day, including 9 consecutive days above 43degC!

So I'm not really complaining because we had just that one hot day and then woke up to cooling rain.

The reason for my post is to share how distressing even one day of that high a temperature can be for wildlife... in our case, the King Parrots. 

I checked the waterbowl fairly early in the day and saw they had gathered and a couple were showing signs of heat discomfort already:

Topped it up with ice cubes and had a look out a few minutes later and a Wattlebird had just flown in for a drink...

Wattlebirds don't like sharing... so Hubby quickly decided it was time for more bowls of water to avoid fights, so he found these:

aww, our hearts went out to her

Every so often, we'd gently hose them and they just stayed where they were and thoroughly enjoyed the shower. 
Some though, seemed confused and would fly off - but not too far away, they came back as soon as we went inside.
We also showered the trees and shrubs around the pond where a lot of other birds could be heard... they'd kind of rustle around and fly up into the spray.

I took most of these photos through the window so as to not distress them any further.

A bit of humour throughout the day though... seems sit/standing on the plastic chair was the prized position.  Hunching backwards, tail up allowed a bit better cooling to the nether regions!  Clever birds :D)

As a bynote, underneath the oval china dish (in the second photo down) is where a little frog has lived for ages.   I did a quick check and he/she was still there, bearing the heat bravely.

Here's a photo I'd happened to take earlier last week.

   

It's funny, since it's been cooler, a Blackbird has been singing its heart out all day yesterday and today.  We both noticed that its more than usual.  Seems as though it's so relieved that the heat has gone! 

Cheers now and stay cool (or warm for the Northern Hemisphere blogfriends ;D)), Sue xx